News Volunteer Service Overseas (VSO)


Supporting Teachers in Rural Ghana By James Heal


I grew up abroad and was constantly getting itchy feet. I did some work experience for VSO when I was 18 and loved it, so after I went along to a VSO talk I was hooked. I decided that if I did not volunteer overseas right then I’d never take the plunge!


I volunteered in Tumu, a remote town in the north of Ghana about two miles from the Burkina Faso border. I was in the country for two years from February 2012 till February 2014. I loved living in rural Ghana. I had such a great work-life balance. There was a weekly market where I bought most of my food. This would normally take a long time as I would catch up with my fruit lady, then my veg lady and then my egg lady until I had seen everyone. After work was a chance to have drink and some bush meat with other ‘Fowlis’ (local word for Westerners) and my Ghanaian colleagues. My weekends would normally be filled with weddings or funerals and if I needed a break I would hop on my motorbike and go for a ride to visit volunteers in other villages.


The Education Sector in Ghana


One of the main barriers of Education in Ghana is access to useful professional development for teachers, especially in the more rural communities. This creates huge barriers to pupil learning, especially as there is normally quite a large number of community volunteer teachers – who are untrained.


The local education department are meant to offer INSET training for teachers, but whether this took place was dependent on the department’s funding. Teacher Support Officers worked closely with the training officers in the District Education Office. They worked to identify gaps in the curriculum and explore different methods of teacher training.


Working as a Teacher Support Officer


I worked in the District Office for the Ghana Education Service. My official job title was a ‘Teacher Support Officer’ but in reality every day I would be doing something different!


One day I would be team teaching, which involves working alongside a teacher to provide ongoing support. I worked alongside kindergarten teachers who had 120 children in their class - very large classes are common in Ghana. The next day I might be running a workshop for 80 head teachers on how to budget their funds for the year. Or I could find myself in a 4x4 with five other colleagues heading out to rural schools to help support INSET trainings (opportunities for teachers to brush up their skills). We covered topics such as adapting teaching methods for children with disabilities. The person I worked closest with was Joshua Baatimah - the Early Years Coordinator in the District Education Office. We oversaw some major changes within the district in terms of awareness of specific early years education at the kindergarten stage. I focussed on developing more child centred approaches and working with teachers to bring games and more interaction into lessons.


By the time I had left Joshua was running his own teacher training programmes and providing support for over 70 schools in the District. I am still in regular contact with him and he has now become the youngest member of staff at the District Teacher Training College where he is now running the Early Years Training Programme.


What would you say to anybody considering volunteering with VSO? I am still constantly surprised at how often skills I developed in Ghana apply to my everyday life in the UK. I was given opportunities I would never have been given at my age in the UK. I made lifelong friends and still get updates from Tumu. When I look at what I would have done in the UK during those two years compared to what I got to do in Ghana, I wouldn’t change a thing. VSO is currently recruiting for volunteer teachers. Specific roles include teacher trainers and English language teacher in Myanmar.


u020 8780 7500 uwww.vso.org.uk January 2015


British Educational Suppliers Association (BESA) Sourcing your ever


increasing need for training This month Caroline Wright, director of the British Educational Suppliers Association (BESA)


encourages us all to attend Bett for one very good reason; to source a wealth of free training in one day. The past few years have delivered a continuous stream of change. The new curriculum, the removal of assessment levels and the introduction of coding within primary computer science, to name just a few.


Therefore it was unsurprising when the results of our recent Continuing Professional Development (CPD) Training in Schools research indicated an increasing demand for training in schools. It was interesting that our survey found clear preferences for the way schools wished CPD to be delivered, with 41 per cent of schools with heads of ICT showing a preference for receiving their training via conferences and seminars.


The reason, I believe, is because world leading conferences and seminars such as Bett not only offer free training, but they also provide a huge range of quick fire, effective sessions that can refine a teacher’s understanding of several issues in just one day. So taking a look at just a few examples of what is on offer, some of you may simply want to be inspired by keynote speakers in the central Bett Arena, such as candid entrepreneur Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia. Jimmy will be sharing his views on ‘The New Paradigm of Open Access to Information’ (12:00, 21st January). Alternatively you may be more interested in hearing education visionary, Sir Ken Robinson, at 16:45 on Thursday 23rd January who will be challenging many of the test-based, standardised educational reforms being pushed globally to 'reform' education, in his session entitled ‘Out of our Minds: learning to be creative.’ If you are looking for advice and ideas on specific areas of the curriculum, ‘Coding in the real world - Lessons learned developing an approach to computing with 25 schools’ will be presented at 12:30 on 21st January in the primary theatre. David Whyley, CEO, Whytek Consulting and Kirsty Tonks, e-Learning & teaching school director at Shireland Collegiate Academy will be outlining a practical approach to delivering the new computing curriculum. ‘Assessment Beyond Levels’ is the focus of Katharine Bailey’s session at 10:15am on 22nd January in the Primary Theatre. Katharine is the director of applied research, at CEM:Durham University.


At 10:15 on 24th January in the Secondary Theatre, Lamia Aktas, will be sharing her experience of ‘Interdisciplinary Augmented Reality Implementation’. Lamia works as the educational technology specialist in Avrupa College Schools (Avrupa Koleji Okullar), in Turkey.


You are invited to attend any of the sessions held over the four days of Bett but I recommend you reserve your seat due to high demand. To do this, simply visit www.bettshow.com. BESA will once again be hosting the Bett Information Point (stand C380) so if you have any questions on arrival, or would like our advice on the best sessions to attend, we look forward to meeting and helping you.


uFor information from BESA contact: uCaroline Wright u020 7537 4997 ucaroline@besa.org.uk uwww.besa.org.uk


www.education-today.co.uk 7


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